A Second Too Slow
by Samurai-no-Yami
Summary: One Shot: An adventure ends before it can even begin.


A SECOND TOO SLOW

It all happened in the blink of an eye.

The Third Hokage was watching the situation unfold from his crystal ball. He had allowed Naruto to steal the forbidden scroll from him in the effort to discover who was pulling the strings. Mizuki was the obvious fall guy. Capturing him would get many questions answered.

A chunin called Iruka had already confronted Mizuki. Just in case, The Third had ANBU, his elite ninja, on stand-by monitoring the situation. He wouldn't leave Naruto's fate up to chance.

Mizuki just broke his silence order to Naruto and sent a shuriken flying at him. Iruka moved to intercept. It should have been child's play for a chunin.

A blink, a fraction of a second, and the worst happened.

Iruka was sluggish, a fraction slower than he should have been. Mizuki's shuriken, too, was unnaturally fast. These fatal flaws tallied up to the shuriken grazing Iruka's arm rather than being stopped by his back. The shuriken veered slightly but not enough to avoid its target, Naruto.

All sounds seemed to cease. A fountain of blood appeared. A blonde head went flying in an unnatural fashion. A Hokage was stupefied and horrified.

Uzumaki Naruto was decapitated.

Naruto froze as he saw the shuriken coming for him. He didn't know what to do, flee or let it hit him. Was he really the Kyuubi? Did he deserve to die? Had he had time to collect himself, his will to live might have reasserted itself. Fate didn't give him that chance.

Before he knew what happened, he was flying in the air. He couldn't feel anything beneath his neck. He felt lighter than he should have. He felt warm seeping from his neck. He couldn't breathe. All of these thoughts came to him in rapid-fire, quicker than he could process them.

His head landed on the ground and rolled until it hit a tree. By some divine chance he was facing his body. That was when he understood what happened. Even a dead last could could figure it out when the proof is right in front of him.

Naruto saw his body, headless, with a fountain of blood slowly dimming down. Heh, now he truly was a "dead" last. He'd never be Hokage. He'd never get recognition from the village. He'd never ever amount to anything. All because he was a monster.

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair! IT WASN'T FAIR! Naruto wanted to cry but felt strangely numb instead. The world was starting to get foggy and it was getting hard to concentrate...

,,, as Naruto cursed the world, he saw a vision out in front of him. A man in blonde hair and a white cloak on his left and a woman with body-length deep red hair on his right. He knew who they were...

...

...They were his parents. He finally got to see them... meet them... finally have a family... not be a failure... show them all... his family...

...Naruto's parents took his hand in theirs. They hugged him. It felt warmer than anything he had ever felt, even better than ramen. "Mom, Dad, I'm home."

"Welcome home, our son."

The Third was in shock. Naruto was dead. His adopted grandson was dead. The Kyuubi's jinchuriki was dead. An academy student was dead. HOW? DID! THIS! HAPPEN!?

A quick search confirmed that all of the investigating ANBU were dead. ALL OF THEM. They were alive seconds ago. The Third thought up every obscenity he could think of as his mind ran in circles of sheer shock.

The Third snapped back into sanity. He wasn't the Hokage of Konoha for nothing. He had seen through 3 Shinobi World Wars. He didn't get that title for being incompetent.

With inhuman speed, the Third informed the patrolling ninja, already futilely looking for the forbidden scroll, to go towards Naruto's position ASAP. He summoned his ANBU and had them prepare the village for attack. He then suited himself up.

Naruto's former body was already shifting as red chakra flowed out of it, forming four tails. His head had already regenerated, but as it was devoid of any will was useless in stopping the coming onslaught.

The Kyuubi was breaking free. It would be reborn. Right in the middle of Konoha! The Third finished his last preparations. He would not let that happen, not as long as he was alive!

The first ninja arrived at the scene to something only seen in their worst nightmares. The growing shape of the Kyuubi looked at them and prepared to attack, but the ninja were faster. Earth jutsu were used to lift the Kyuubi in the air while the Akamichi clan head grew to the size of a giant and slammed his fist into the Kyuubi.

The Kyuubi went flying, skipping over trees until it passed over the wall surrounding Konoha.

The Third, let himself relax a bit. The Kyuubi was out of Konoha, and out of the way of defenseless civilians. The major problem with the Kyuubi attack several years ago was that it had appeared in the center of the village, allowing it to cause maximum damage. Last time they were unprepared, this time they knew what worked and what didn't.

Ninja were already busy evacuating the village. Younger ninja were told to flee for shelters with the civilians. The once sleeping village rapidly became busy. Shouts and screams filled the air as people began to realize what was happening. Their worst nightmares come to life.

Ninja quickly gathered near the Kyuubi and used more jutsu to force it further from Konoha. Long-range jutsu was most effective. Elemental attacks, a concentrated hail of kunai and explosion tags, and sometimes a coordinated physical assault. The Kyuubi was currently at a small size, thus was capable of being moved easily. The Third wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to get it as far away as it could be possible.

The Kyuubi already had eight tails; its skeleton clearly visible. Anyone who had survived the last Kyuubi attack, though, could tell it was certainly weaker. Inhumanly powerful but weaker than the power that had destroyed so much of the village.

The Third had already summoned Enma for his aid, and used his old-time friend to fight his way as close as possible. An ANBU arrived with his tell tale use of wood jutsu. Good. Now the only thing left was too seal its movements.

The Kyuubi attacked the ninja in front of him, slashing with its claws and swiping with its tails. Great gouges formed in the earth wherever it attacked. The field quickly became scarred and pit-marked with the familiar signs of war.

The Kyuubi was finally free from that brat! All it had to do was kill those annoying flesh-bags and it could live in relative "peace". Fleeing was the last thing on its mind.

All too quickly, the Kyuubi sensed a shift in the battle. Before the ninja were clearly ineffective to its might. The Kyuubi was able to push back and force its way closer to the village. Now the ninja had switched tactics, hampering its movements with their jutsu. Normally, this would be meaning less, but they had become surprisingly effective. The Kyuubi had to actually pause its attack to free itself.

The Kyuubi then realized what was happening. He had retained his rationality from its recent imprisonment and had remembered this exact scenario the last time it was sealed. They were going to summon the Shinigami. It would be sealed within another host.

The Kyuubi roared and tripled its efforts to free itself. There was no shame in fleeing, he could always return to attack the village on his own time. Those concessions were worth not being bound again.

Too soon there was the distressingly familiar sight of the pale ghost cloaked in white. Its gnarled hands were already clasped around the Kyuubi's throat. The Kyuubi felt a bone-numbing chill spread through its body as the deity's hand pulled back. The Kyuubi tried to resist, digging its claws into the ground, but it was futile. It would be sooner to escape from a black hole than to resist the grip of the deity.

The Kyuubi fell screaming into a new dungeon, yet another prison of flesh and seals. The Kyuubi cursed the gods, the heavens, the ninja, that brat of a last container...

Sakura shot up in her bed, ears ringing with echo of that primal scream. She was still shaking when her mother came into her room to comfort her. It was the same dream as yesterday; the one where Naruto was being eaten by the Kyuubi. Slowly. Deliberately.

She still couldn't wrap her head around the fact that one of her classmates was actually dead. Her teachers Iruka and Mizuki, the Third Hokage, as well as a handful of other ninja also died that night, but somehow his death hit closer to home. It could have been her!

Some whispered that the only part left of him was his head. Others whispered that it was somehow Naruto's fault that the Kyuubi killed him. Sakura thought different. After all, the Hokage had insisted that Naruto's name was placed on the memorial stone: the only non-ninja to receive that honor.

The Third Hokakge sacrificed his life to seal the Kyuubi within a masked ninja who could control trees. Some whispered that he was the First Hokage reincarnated. Sakura only saw another Naruto.

Sakura recovered from her scare and got ready to start the day. The funeral yesterday delayed her graduation from the academy but, as they say, life goes on. Those who died would be mourned. What little damage done to Konoha would be repaired. New missions would be assigned. Such was the life of a ninja.


End file.
